Text A. THE ECOCITY CONCEPT IN CURITIBA, BRAZIL

An example of an ecocity is Curitiba (“koor-i-TEE-ba”), a metropolitan area with 3.2 million people known as the “ecological capital” of Brazil.

Planners in this city decided in 1969 to focus on an inexpensive and efficient mass transit system rather than on the car. Curitiba now has the world’s best rapid transit bus system, in which clean and modern buses transport about 72% of the population every day throughout the city along express lanes dedicated to buses. Only high-rise apartment buildings are allowed near major bus routes, and each building must devote its bottom two floors to stores—a practice that reduces the need for residents to travel far for shopping.

Cars are banned from 49 blocks in the center of the downtown area, which has a network of pedestrian walkways connected to bus stations, parks, and bicycle paths running throughout most of the city. Consequently, Curitiba uses less energy per person and has lower emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants and less traffic congestion than do most comparable cities.

The city transformed flood-prone areas along its river banks into a series of interconnected parks. Volunteers have planted more than 1.5 million trees throughout the city, none of which can be cut down without a permit. And two trees must be planted for each one that is cut down.

Curitiba recycles roughly 70% of its paper and 60% of its metal, glass, and plastic. Recovered materials are sold mostly to the city’s more than 500 major industries, which must meet strict pollution standards.

The poor receive free medical and dental care, child care, and job training, and 40 feeding centers are available for street children. Poor people who live in areas not served by garbage trucks, can exchange filled garbage bags for surplus food, bus tokens, and school supplies. The city uses old buses as roving classrooms to train its poor in the basic skills needed for jobs. Other retired buses have become health clinics, soup kitchens, and day care centers that are free for low-income parents.

About 95% of Curitiba’s citizens can read and write and 83% of adults have at least a high school education. All school children study ecology. Polls show that 99% of the city’s inhabitants would not want to live anywhere else.

Curitiba now faces new challenges, as do all cities, mostly due to a fivefold increase in its population since 1965. Curitiba’s once clear streams are often overloaded with pollutants. The bus system is nearing capacity, and car ownership is on the rise. The city is considering building a light rail system to relieve some of the pressure.

This internationally acclaimed model of urban planning and sustainability is the brainchild of architect and former college professor Jaime Lerner, who has served as the city’s mayor three times since 1969. In the face of new challenges, Lerner and other leaders in Curitiba argue that education is still a key to making cities more sustainable, and they want Curitiba to continue serving as an educational example for that great purpose.

Text B. THE CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE STORY

Local officials, business leaders, and citizens have worked together to transform the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, from a highly polluted city to one of the most sustainable cities in the United States.

During the 1960s, U.S. government officials rated Chattanooga as having the dirtiest air in the United States. Its air was so polluted by smoke from its coke ovens and steel mills that people sometimes had to turn on their vehicle headlights in the middle of the day. The Tennessee River, which flows through the city’s industrial center, bubbled with toxic waste. People and industries fled the downtown area and left a wasteland of abandoned and polluting factories, boarded-up buildings, high unemployment, and crime.

In 1984, the city decided to get serious about improving its environmental quality. Civic leaders started a Vision 2000 process with a 20-week series of community meetings in which more than 1,700 citizens from all walks of life gathered to build a consensus about what the city could be at the turn of the century. Citizens identified the city’s main problems, set goals, and brainstormed thousands of ideas for solutions.

By 1995, Chattanooga had met most of the Vision 2000 goals. The city had encouraged zero-emission industries to locate there and replaced its diesel buses with a fleet of quiet, zeroemission, electric buses, made by a new local firm.

The city also launched an innovative recycling program after environmentally concerned citizens blocked construction of a new garbage incinerator that would have emitted harmful air pollutants. These efforts paid off. Since 1989, the levels of the seven major air pollutants in Chattanooga have been lower than those required by federal standards.

Another project involved renovating much of the city’s lowincome housing and building new low-income rental units. Chattanooga also built the nation’s largest freshwater aquarium, which became the centerpiece for downtown renewal. The city developed a riverfront park along both banks of the Tennessee River, which draws more than 1 million visitors per year to the downtown area. As property values and living conditions have improved, people and businesses have moved back downtown.

Chattanooga’s environmental success story, a result of people working together to produce a more livable and sustainable city, is a shining example of how people can use economic and political tools, while motivated by ethical concerns, to solve serious environmental problems. 

3. Read both texts again and give English equivalents for the following words and word-combinations.

Многоэтажный жилой дом, пешеходная дорожка, крупный город с его пригородами, общественный транспорт, пригодный для жизни, получивший международное признание, пробка на дороге, изобретение / плод (чьих-л.) размышлений, сталеплавильный завод, мусоросжигательная печь, безотходный, быть рентабельным / окупиться, пустырь, пример успеха, пресная вода.

4. Express your opinion on the following statements.

1) “Society is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, thosewho are dead, and those who are to be born.” (Edmund Burke, 1790)

2) “Seeing things differently is the first step toward doing things differently.” (Anonymous)

3) “The time has come for humankind not to expect the Earth to produce more, but rather to do more with what the Earth already produces.” (Belgium industrialist, Gunter Pauli)

4) Sustainable development simply means “treating the earth as if we intended to stay.” (Crispin Tickell, British Ambassador to the United Nations)

Additional reading

Read the text, define its main idea. How would you answer the question at the end of it?